How L’Oréal Is Changing the Face of Beauty Marketing

The L’Oréal Group, the world’s largest cosmetics and beauty company with over €22.98 billion in sales in FY 2013, spent approximately €7 billion in advertising and promotions.  Traditional marketing and advertising of spreads in fashion magazines and television commercials had been the de facto marketing strategy for decades. However, with the increased use of mobile and internet, consumers are gradually relying on social media influencers, beauty bloggers, and mobile applications to make their purchasing decisions.

Over the past five years, L’Oréal has engaged with their customers through targeted and interactive content instead of one-way, aspirational messaging.  Former L’Oréal CMO Marc Spiechart has explained in an interview that this method focuses on the “long tail of content” for the customer’s “evaluation phase.” Spiechart explains, “What we realized is that we shouldn’t create just one piece of content that will be relevant to the majority of people.  Instead we’re creating many different assets that address the specific needs of consumers.” During Speichert’s tenure as CMO, digital spending at L’Oréal doubled.

I found this article interesting with the intersection between retail and digital.  Beauty companies are noticing the increasing amount of influence that digital content has on consumers.  These mass conglomerates are increasing their digital spend and engaging their core consumers through personalized digital content (long-tail) rather than traditional mass marketing (fat head).  Additionally, I had the pleasure of hearing CMO Marc Spiechart speak at the L’Oréal company presentation at Columbia Business School last year and everything he mentioned is true to the company’s evolving digital strategy.  In the future, it will be interesting to see the results of how consumers respond to personalized content.

Source: Contently http://contently.com/strategist/2014/08/12/how-loreal-is-changing-the-face-of-beauty-marketing/